As more and more data becomes available in electronic form, accessing such data electronically is becoming more and more popular. It is desirable to provide users access to electronic information on-demand. While use of the internet and world wide web has simplified making data generally accessible, for security purposes, many persons and companies prefer to keep their data in a central source that can only be accessed by certain persons, rather than the general public. In either situation, while access to the information from a specific location that has an established data connection that is used repeatedly is simple and virtually transparent to the user, the choice of access method is not always so simple when a user is seeking to access information from a remote location. In such situations, the standard access method typically used may not be available, although there may be other access methods available, or the user may be using a different access tool than s/he typically uses, and thus not even be aware of the various access methods available.
Such situations are occurring more and more frequently in our increasingly mobile society. These issues are particularly true where users are geographically scattered, and/or accessing data from various field locations in which the standard high-speed connections to the data source may not be available. This is often seen with field service technicians for various equipment that may be located in a building, or outside, or various other remote areas, and high-speed connections to the data source are not available. It is difficult for a user at a remote location to know what data connections are available at that location, or to determine the best connection method to use in a particular situation.